


'Til The River Runs Dry

by hitlikehammers



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, As In: The Love-Conquers-All Type of Thing, Because Seriously—This is the MCU and No One Stays Dead for Long, GH.325, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Love, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Sacrifice, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve's Lost Bucky Too Many Times to Suffer That Again, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-18 01:38:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2330468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes always knew he’d end up dying for Steve Rogers.</p><p>Thing is: Steve Rogers doesn’t believe in death, anymore.</p><p> </p><p>  <span class="small">Inspired by <a href="http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/97305878166/imagine-person-a-of-your-otp-taking-a-fatal-blow#notes">THIS PROMPT</a>; the ending made me a bit too sad, though, so I went a less-heartbreaking route that conveniently avoids the need for an archive warning (aka, no one stays dead).</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad) for looking this over and listening to me babble about it <3
> 
> Credit to [this song](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/garthbrooks/theriver.html) for the title, because somehow it popped into my head and worked. And then stuck.

Steve runs it through his head, one more time, one more time before the next time, before he keeps running it, over and over and over and—

Steve cannot stop running it through his head.

It started like it always starts, like it’s always started: they suit up, they head out, and a hand makes it to a shoulder—it doesn’t, it’s _never_ mattered which of them reaches first—and when they look at each other they can read the words they’re not quite built to say, and what they _do_ say instead is always scripted, always the same:

_Be careful._

Because Steve’s only ever wanted to take _care_ of James Buchanan Barnes, and he’s not sure he’s ever managed, ever been capable of that feat but he wants, goddamnit—he _wants_ ; because when Steve goes to bed wrapped around him, and wakes up just the same, it’s still hard, some days, to watch him walk away, to give him up in a moment to hate and red and the hail of battle when all Steve wants is to grasp at him, to nail Bucky Barnes to his chest and stitch him straight into his veins and never let him go, never let him hurt again because fuck, _fuck_ —

It’s hard.

_**Be safe.** _

Because Bucky knows that Steve’s never _been_ careful, and to make that claim on him will just hurt where Bucky’s still sore, still fragile beneath the skin: he can’t ask that Steve’s careful, but he can ask, he can beg Steve to try and come back _safe_ , nonetheless.

And Steve does try. Now more than ever, Steve tries his damnedest.

 _And Stevie?_ Bucky would say, as if it were an afterthought, when there’s enough space between them to make it so they won’t give in, they won’t draw close and just breathe in the same air a little longer: live within a guarantee of _this_ for just a moment more.

Bucky would say it, when there’s enough space in between.

 **Hey Buck?** Or Steve would turn, just about to leap, just about to jump without a chute—and Steve used to wonder if Bucky’s heart jumped like his did, in those moments; used to wonder if it took Bucky by the ribs and shook him just as hard, but now Steve doesn’t wonder; now Steve knows, because he can read it in the way Bucky’s eyes move, the way Bucky’s chest shivers under all that armor, flesh and blood and bone and nerves and gears and metal and muscle and _Bucky_ , through and through.

Steve would turn, and he’d read it, and he’d _know_.

Then Bucky would shrug, and smirk, and say, _Save it for later, Punk._

Where Steve would tip his head and grin, throwing back a mock-salute: **It’ll keep ‘til after, Jerk.**

Because anything more, anything less, anything _else_ would feel like a goodbye, and they’re not ready, they’re not willing: they’ve never said goodbye, before. Not ever.

And they’ve made it back, they’ve survived: through everything.

That’s gotta be a sign.

And Steve’s not a fool, Steve’s not naive—not about this, fuck, no: not about _this_ , and there’s not a damned person on this earth who could push him on that score, because _no one_ knows the truth of _this_ like he does; no one’s felt it like they have.

They go into battle, every time, with both eyes open; weapons at the ready, at each other’s side: hearts on their sleeves.

As it should be.

So they’re not idiots—at least, not in this. They’ve always known what could happen. They’ve always walked in, well aware of the stakes.

And maybe it’s because it happens the same way, every time, and it ends the same way: in their room, in their bed where they take the things that can’t fit into words and they say them in friction, in heat and need and breath; maybe it’s because it begins and ends in a cycle: maybe that’s why Steve never expects anything else, anything less. He knows the odds, he knows what it is they face.

It’s just that he never expects the cycle to _break_.

The enemy is tenacious, if predictable. This particular weapons cache is bigger, though—more sprawling than they’ve yet tried to raze, and Steve thinks that maybe he understands why Schmidt was willing to cut and run with that scorched earth mentality, burning everything and leaving nothing because there would always be places like this one: towering effigies of power, of order, of death.

Steve swallows hard, and forces his mind back to the moment, the present: the blade at his neck.

Because the op he’s up against fights with a knife, and that’s both familiar now and bile in his throat, all at once, and Steve’s anticipating the blows, the swipes as best he can, but there’s something heavy in the way his heart pounds, something that superimposes itself over this nameless Hydra lackey’s face—

“And there you were complaining when I made you spar with me,” Bucky’s smirk rings through the comm-link in Steve’s ear, and the op’s falling flat, a bullet through his skull before Steve can exhale long enough to know the weight in his chest is easing, leaving, and Steve can’t help the huff of breath, the curl of his lips in the melee.

 _Bucky_.

“Can it, jer—”

“ _Cap, on your left_!”

A voice cuts him off, frantic: Steve thinks it’s Sam, but maybe it’s Bruce, maybe it’s Trip—Steve doesn’t know.

Steve just turns, battle-ready, to find that he’s too late.

Oh, _god_.

There’s no sound, suddenly, not even the rush of his blood: he can feel it, pounding at the center of his chest like it wants out, like it wants _done_ , but he can’t hear it.

He can’t hear it because the world’s gone, suddenly: the world is gone except for this, except for the reason that the world turns, the reason that lungs breathe, the reason, his _reason_.

The world’s gone because there’s a dead Hydra fuck on the floor, and on top of him, making the killing blow at a cost, is Bucky.

And maybe it’s reasonable, that Steve stares, that Steve chokes, that Steve cannot believe it just as much as he can’t breathe. Maybe it makes sense, because it’s not supposed to go this way, it’s not supposed to be like this: it’s never _been like this_ , because there’s always been time. A second, a minute: enough to make some kind of connection, to fade in time with a soul that meant something. His momma. Erskine. Peggy. Stark. Whether he was the one losing, or being lost, he’d been lucky, for the most part: there’d been enough moments left at least to look, to speak, to be, for just one blink more. To know between them, somehow; to settle what stayed unspoken.

There’s a dead Hydra fuck on the floor, a strange weapon half-gripped in his limp hands, glowing that horrible blue from the realm of nightmares and another life: and he’d been coming for Steve, and Steve can see it in his mind’s eye: there was no stopping him. Steve had been distracted. Steve would have gone down.

There’s a dead Hydra fuck on the floor, and on top of him: _on top of him_ , lies Bucky.

And Steve never thought, would never have believed that those eyes could break his heart any more than they had on that bridge, any more than they had when they looked at him but didn’t know him—blank; hollowed out—but now, like this, they do.

They _do_.

When those eyes look—except they’re not looking, they can’t look, he can’t _look_ , not _anymore_ —when those eyes don’t-look at him, when he’s caught by the way they can’t see, won’t see, aren’t _here_ ; when he sees but isn’t seen because there’s _nothing_ there behind them, it cuts Steve through the veins of him, it clenches around his aorta until his chest is fire, is all nail-marks and pounding, _pounding_ —

When those eyes look at him, empty, and they’re still so fucking _blue_ , Steve can’t breathe.

Steve dies right there with him.  
___________________________

Steve doesn’t remember moving, doesn’t remember thinking: he doesn’t remember how they get from the compound to the quinjet, but he does register the vibration, the monotone of whispers.

The thread of a thought streams through: all targets eliminated. And the pressure of eyes trained upon him: culpability. Red in his ledger. That registers, too.

He swallows.

_Good._

But the body in his arms was not a target; the body in his arms lighter than it has any right to be: unreal, and maybe that’s important, maybe this isn’t real, maybe this _cannot_ be _real_ —

The star on the arm hasn’t been clear for a long time, but where it was, where it used to be: it’s scarlet again. The blast went straight through his armor—leftover tesseract technology, the small guns left behind in storage: Steve can’t look, but if he did look, if he were going to lend any credence to the things that linger in his peripheral vision as he stares straight ahead, unblinking—if he let those carry any real weight, the torn muscle would be obvious, the shredded skin undeniable, the gleam of shattered bone brighter than the metal of the shoulder Steve’s got his arm cradled around. If Steve was going to let any of it settle in as fact, he’d put together the actualities he holds close to his body, all limp, all still, all cold.

He’d acknowledge the blast, the damage, the consequences. He’d look and he’d see the hole in the center of Bucky’s chest and he’d know what the blood and the bone and the flesh tore through. He’d know what stole the world from his vision, stole it from being—Steve would know what killed them both, and how, if he bothered to look.

But Bucky’s close to him, held tight to his body, and Steve wonders  
___________________________

Steve runs it through his head.

One more time.

He’s staring again, and his jaw’s clenched so tight it hurts, but that doesn’t matter—none of it matters.

He watches the door with the same single-minded intent that carried his legs into the Tower, that didn’t so much ignore his friends as it delineated their irrelevance.

The same unfaltering resolve that makes him say _Tony_ , instead of _Stark_ , when he demands—doesn’t ask—for the body to be put on ice, to be kept safe.

It’s the same determination that _this is not, this cannot be the end_ that keeps Steve from shriveling from the capillaries up when Bucky’s face gets lost in a haze of ice crystals, drawing latticework across those cheeks and thank god, thank _god_ Steve closed those eyes, _his_ eyes before that moment, before Steve stood there and _watched_ —

“Steve.”

The voice—breathless, almost lost in the creak of the opening door—snaps him back into the present, to the moment at hand and in the present, in that moment, Steve stands.

And it’s nothing more or less than the conviction of simple logic, of the laws that hold the universe in absolutes—Steve can’t be alive, here and now, not if Bucky’s _truly_ gone: it’s that truth that makes it so Steve’s limbs can hold his weight.

“Jemma,” Steve breathes: she hadn’t been on the op, she’d been in the lab, but her eyes are red-rimmed, her cheeks rubbed raw: she knows.

Of course she knows.

“I’m so sorry, Steve,” she says, and the words shiver out of her, but Steve only hears them with half of himself: the rest of him is taking in the walking, breathing, blinking, _living_ form of the man in the lab coat approaching behind her: Dr. Leopold Fitz.

Alive. And well.

After _everything_.

Steve thinks about serums, about enemies; about Hydra, and sacrifice. He thinks about train tracks and failure and cold. Steve thinks about aliens in Manhattan. He thinks about the Arctic and too many lifetimes spent alone.

And Steve thinks about Coulson. Thinks about hearts that learn to beat again, from the pulps leftover once they’re gutted, once they’re torn to shreds.

Steve thinks, long and hard, about life and death.

“Don’t,” Steve cuts her off as she tries to offer him more compassion, more condolences: when she reaches for him, he catches her hands and folds them in his own; he catches her eyes with a question, a plea, a command, and he can see the way it rises in her, the recognition of what it is he’s come for, what he wants: he watches it run through her, part horror, part heartbroken _knowing_ , painted clear, gleaming green inside her gaze.

“Don’t be sorry,” Steve whispers, because sorry means it’s over; sorry means there’s a loss that can’t be changed, and they’re not there yet, _he’s_ not there yet, so she can’t be sorry, she _can’t_.

“Not _yet_.”


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you sure you—”
> 
> Steve lets his eyes meet Jemma's full on, and her breath catches: he doesn’t know what all she sees there, but his answer—the only answer, the same answer it’s always been and will always be regardless of costs or consequences, because those can be dealt with, those can be met and overcome but this _can’t_ , breathing without Bucky _can’t_ be _overcome_ : his answer was always going to be this.
> 
> His answer is _Bucky_ , and nothing can change that fact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks, again, to [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad) for looking this over when she absolutely didn't have to <3
> 
>  
> 
> This chapter also required reposting due to some weird craziness with the formatting on the first post that would not go away regardless of what I tried to edit. Please do let me know if anything weird still managed to weasel its way through. Many thanks!

“Cap.”

Steve stops in his tracks; turns slowly toward the sound. He should have known that Stark would be on his heels as soon as the release of Bucky’s body from cryo was registered in the system log. JARVIS was on top of things that way.

“Tony,” Steve breathes out, tries to project a sense of calm, but there’s nothing, he’s got nothing because he might as well be shaking with the force of his blood in his veins, and he wants to sob with it, he wants to give in to the pressure in his chest, behind his eyes, he _wants_ to, and if Tony pushes him, if Tony tests him, if Tony tries to _stop_ him: “I don’t—”

“Hear me out.” Tony’s hands go up, palms out: an offering. He stops with enough distance left between them for Steve to pretend that he can breathe inside the space. 

“I’m not interested in giving up on Barnes any more than you are,” Tony says, and his eyes are honest, even as he shrugs. “Well, okay, you’re probably slightly less interested, given…” Tony gestures openly: indicative, Steve thinks, of the way Steve’s pulse has felt like a countdown from the minute, the _moment_ Bucky fell to the ground, and Steve swallows, and he wants to run, he wants to scream, he wants to crumble on the spot because his knees can’t hold him up. 

“Right,” Tony shakes his head, straightens; clears his throat. “Point is, I’m no heart surgeon, but I’ve got some experience putting a bum ticker back together,” he taps the center of his chest, where the arc reactor used to glow. “Plus JARVIS could take on Cristina fucking Yang at the Cardiothoracic Summer Games and win by a landslide.”

“While I object to being matched with a fictional character,” the AI interjects from god-knows-where; “the intention of the comparison is accurate, Captain. I’m impeccably well-versed in the literature, as well as the practical application.”

And Steve tries not to think too much on the calculated combination of banter and humor to cut through the tension, and the undertones of calm and comfort that are somehow evident in the precise lilt of that computerized voice; Steve tries not to dwell on the way JARVIS knows every frantic thump of his heart, how hard it runs, how fast, what it does beneath the skin and that _that’s_ what drives the cadence of the words, the volume and the timbre and the flow.

Steve inhales, sharp but deep, and thinks about being grateful while Tony fills the quiet that Steve knows is stretching, but he just can’t hear it, not over the heaving drumming in his ears.

“Teaching hospitals, man,” Tony half-whistles, low. “Would have taken me twice the time to figure out all the quirks of the actual human tissue bullshit around the reactor without those livestreams. By which I mean, it would have taken me the full twenty-four hours, instead of twelve.”

Tony’s glancing at him, trying to see if the snark makes a difference: to see if eases something, Steve suspects, or if it redirects Steve’s attention for just a second.

It doesn’t work. 

Tony bites his lower lip.

“What I’m saying,” Tony tilts his head, narrows his eyes, and Steve’s only ever seen him look like this when it matters, when he’s serious to the point of being lethal, of burning buildings, and Steve doesn’t know if he understands where this is going, Steve doesn’t think he has the mental capacity to spare to make sense of Tony looking at _him_ , like that, just now.

“This is off-books, I take it, even by secret-not-government standards. And I’ve got steady hands,” Tony lifts said hands, considers them on the spot. “Not particularly small hands, but that’s what the bots are for.”

And if Steve doesn’t have the mental capacity to rationalize what’s happening, here, what’s being offered, he sure as hell doesn’t have heart in him left to hope; he needs it spelled, he needs it said.

“And if you need an extra pair–”

“Yes.”

Tony stops, looks straight at him, unwavering, and Steve didn’t mean to speak, it just happened, the word just came because somehow, he does trust Tony Stark, and Steve knows that Tony likes Bucky, cares for him even, in Tony’s strange way, and if Bucky’s going to make it, if Bucky’s going to come back to Steve and make it so that the pounding thing in Steve’s chest doesn’t have to beat itself to death for fear of pounding _alone_ : if Bucky’s going to look at him, and steal the breath in Steve’s lungs, and make the world feel like it has a reason for turning at all, then Steve needs all the help he can get.

“I,” Steve tries, but his voice breaks, and he looks away from Tony’s gaze, nodding to the floor and rasping out: rough at the back of his throat. “Yeah.” 

“Right,” Tony says, and there’s determination in the word, and Steve looks up again just to see Tony glancing up toward the ceiling. “Suit up, J—”

“If by ‘suit-up,’ you mean check all relevant publications for recent updates in research and technique, sir,” JARVIS cuts him off, “I am happy to inform you that I began that process as soon as the Sergeant’s cryo protocols were activated.”

Tony blinks, jaw a little bit dropped, before he huffs: “Fucking showboater, Jesus.” 

Tony’s turning, instructing JARVIS to divert power and increase security protocols for the medical bay Jemma’s prepping in the sublevels of the Tower, before Steve’s mouth opens again, stops him of its own accord.

“Tony.”

The man turns, and Steve swallows hard, again; against the way it’s all grit and ash when he tries to form words, when he tries to gasp air.

“Thank you,” Steve says, because he means it. Because Tony deserves thanking, regardless of what happens.

Because Steve won’t be able to keep moving, keep _being_ if he lets himself believe that this will end with anything less than Bucky breathing, and warm, and _his_.

Tony stares at him, and Steve suspects he’s seeing more than what Steve would like him to find, but Steve’s too vulnerable, Steve’s too focused on a singular point to care. 

“We’ll see you down there,” Tony nods, and turns away once more.

“Technically, sir,” JARVIS’s voice follows him away from Steve. “I will be able to observe the Captain continuously—”

“You correct me on semantics, JARVIS, and I’ll pull your plug myself.”

Steve doesn’t laugh, but he thinks, if he makes it through the night—if he and Bucky open their eyes to morning, then he needs to remember to thank JARVIS. For trying.

His heart’s still pounding, still pulled bow-tight, but there’s something different, something settled: resolved. He can breathe, if only barely.

Steve moves toward the elevator and tries to trust that feeling.

_________________________

_Make tea_ , Jemma had said, sending him toward the kitchenette and away from the surgery bay.

It takes Steve up until the moment the water boils to realize that when Jemma wants tea, she provides her own variety. She hadn’t given him anything. She’d been prepping equipment. He’d been trying to make heads or tails of the readouts she was consulting, peering over her shoulder, trying to see what they weren’t telling him, trying to know the end of a story he couldn’t stand: a nervous fucking wreck hovering in the corner.

Steve _is_ a nervous fucking wreck.

He brews one cup of tea and tries to drink it, before he scalds himself, hands shaking too hard, and gives up.

He’s on his way back to where he started when it stops him:

“Captain Rogers.”

Steve’s blood runs cold as he turns around.

“Director.” It’s not that Steve dislikes Phil Coulson; just the opposite, in fact.

He doesn’t particularly like the fact that he’s going to have to fight this man, who he respects and cares about, on the issue of saving the better half of Steve’s soul.

“I’m not going to try to talk you out of it.” Phil either reads it in his face, or knows him well enough to guess. “And I’ll save us both the indignity of trying to order you to let it go.”

And Steve can feel it, he can damn well _feel_ it, the fight in him, rush straight out of his bones, and he’s almost fearful, almost livid that Phil denies him that strength, that false sense of momentum and drive because now he is trembling again; now he feels wholly lost. 

“We,” Phil starts, steps closer, and Steve doesn’t have it in him to care, to flinch at being witness this way: wild and fevered and splitting at his seams. 

“We do what we have to,” Phil says, his tone low, his eyes distant; “for the people who matter most.”

His gaze sharpens back to the present, to Steve in particular: hard. Clear.

“Regardless of the cost.”

Understanding, somehow; like he wishes he didn’t.

“Sir,” Steve manages to force out before he makes to leave, to get back, to miss nothing, to be there when the person who matters most needs _him_ most.

“Just do me a favor,” Coulson’s voice pulls him back, and this time, the eyes that find his own are hard, and clear, and terrible.

_Terrible_.

“Consider the cost.”

Steve nods, mute, and he turns, and he fights the urge to run.

He tries very hard not to dwell on the shaking in his hands.

_________________________

Jemma’s already outside the doors of the Tower’s best-equipped OR before Steve can so much as think of overriding the access locks.

“He,” Jemma starts, and Steve can see it as she follows his gaze where it settles, where it stays upon the body on the table, upon the hand that Steve can see: still, and stiff, and bone fucking white. 

“He, umm,” Jemma tries, and Steve feels her hand on his shoulder, feels her ease him away, sit him down, but he doesn’t know how his feet move, how his legs work: he doesn’t feel that part.

“They’re prepping him,” she tells him, voice pitched low, aimed to soothe. “We can’t warm him too quickly, we have to be careful, optimize our interventions in line with his advanced healing capabilities,” Jemma swallows, but Steve’s eyes can’t find her, Steve’s mind can’t follow her as he’s staring at the barest line of Bucky’s body on a table, just the hint of his shape and it hurts, oh god, it _hurts_ —

“I don’t know how I feel about a robot called ‘Dummy’ taking part,” Jemma’s rambling, filling a silence she can hear where Steve only knows static. “But Stark assures me that it’s as trustworthy as they come.”

“Stark’s,” Steve rasps out idly, and his eyes flicker up toward what looks like an ECG, and his own heart’s caught up in the flat-run of the line on the screen, rattling in his chest like a loose bolt, a dying creature waiting to let go. 

“Stark’s a good man.” Steve says, tries to swallow, but it’s too much to ask.

“Right,” Jemma breathes out, and Steve doesn’t know how long he drifts before her hands are on his hands, covering them more than holding, warm against his knuckles where he grips hard into the flesh of his own thighs.

“Steve,” she whispers, and her eyes are big when he turns, when he meets them; big and solemn and Steve can’t hold that, can take that into himself and make sense out of its weight. “There’s no guarantee—”

“I know.” And Steve does know. Somewhere, beneath all the things he knows truer, deeper—all the things he _has_ to _believe_ above what isn’t guaranteed, he knows that.

“But it’s gonna work,” he tells her; can’t look at her as he does, though; just can’t. “It’ll work.”

“Of course it will,” Jemma nods, and he can hear the tight smile in her voice, but he can’t, he _won’t_ let it work its way down through his skin, into his blood, into his bones: the heart of him.

He won’t _let_ it.

“Steve,” Jemma starts, and Steve can feel the muscles deep in his legs where his fingertip dig dark bruises down as he grips hard, nearly bites through his own tongue for the way he’s trying to say focused, stay present, stay in one goddamn _piece_ : he can damn well trace the capillaries as they burst and paint his skin blue beneath the surface as he clenches a fist around his own flesh; as Jemma massages the tops of his hand, small circles that try, but fail to ease his gasp, his fear.

His _ache_.

“Steve, if he,” and she breathes out slow; a long exhale that Steve can feel as it shifts the air around them.

“You have to understand,” she whispers, and there’s an edge of desperation that cuts through some of the haze, that brings Steve’s eyes back to her only to find that hers is the gaze that’s distant, now. 

“Coulson has,” she swallows, and Steve watches the motion struggle through her throat. “It’s the worst, for him,” her eyes flash, flicker to him frantically before moving away once more. “Which isn’t to say it’s not under control, of course not, he’s the Director, so it’s obviously quite manageable, but—”

Her voice quivers, breaks a bit, and Steve’s frowning, Steve’s warring with the need to know and the need to comfort her through something he doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t have the resources, the energy, the _presence_ of his own _self_ to reach out, to help: not here.

Not now.

“It won’t be that his mind’s not his own, exactly,” Jemma murmurs. “it’ll just be, he might...”

Her hands pull away then, and Steve follows their motion to where she’s unbuttoning her shirt, slipping it off to reveal the camisole underneath: turning, so Steve can see the skin on her back.

They’re not scratches, exactly: more skin rubbed raw from too much friction, too much repetition of motion, of weight upon the dermis over and again, the same pattern, the same lines and circles in a winding-perfect grid—

“Images,” Jemma breathes out, shivers as she shrugs her shirt back on. “We think it’s a language.” She squares her shoulders and schools her face. “It’s more an...unconscious compulsion, really. And it isn’t dangerous, so far as we can tell. But,” she worries her bottom lip, glances behind them to the operating table, to the man—not the body, but the _man_ lying on top of it. 

“With his background,” Jemma continues, “I know what it means for his mind to be his own, and if…”

And Steve knows where she’s going, feels it slice deep into his chest, worry and guilt and self-loathing cutting straight between the ribs because Steve knows where she’s going. Steve knows. 

“I’ve dampened it mostly to dreams, for Fitz,” she adds, but she sounds weary in a way he’s never heard before, a way that takes that knife and thrusts it deeper. “He doesn't wake, like Phil. I don’t even think he knows,” she shakes her head, and squeezes her eyes shut tight, waits until the watery quality of her voice evens out before she looks back up, breathes in too deep. 

“But sometimes, he,” and she reaches to her back, traces the red lines through the fabric of her clothing. “It’s not violent, just, repetitive. So it…”

She sighs, and shrugs, and fixes Steve with a pointed look.

“Well,” she nods her head decisively. “We get up before dawn, most days. And we don’t keep many lights near the bed.”

And there’s a logical, a rational place in Steve's consciousness that almost wishes her words held any meaning beyond the theory, beyond the compassion he feels for this woman who’s a friend; he almost wishes what she says could sway his mind with any weight, but it can’t, because as much as he knows what she’s saying, what she’s trying to convey, he knows the question she’s going to ask, and it’s pointless, really.

“Are you sure you—”

Steve lets his eyes meet Jemma's full on, and her breath catches: he doesn’t know what all she sees there, but his answer—the only answer, the same answer it’s always been and will always be regardless of costs or consequences, because those can be dealt with, those can be met and overcome but this _can’t_ , breathing without Bucky _can’t_ be _overcome_ : his answer was always going to be this.

His answer is _Bucky_ , and nothing can change that fact.

“Right.” Jemma exhales it like an omen as she stands; breathes it like a lost cause or a forgone conclusion, but Steve doesn’t care; it’s irrelevant. “We’ll keep you updated,” she smiles, small and thin: “Promise.”

He nods, and runs his hands over his face, tries to breathe the way a man might when he knows, instead of fears, how he’ll breathe again tomorrow.

Jemma's voice at the door to the OR draws his attention away from the way his lungs choke around the air.

“We’re going to do everything we can, Steve,” she tells him, all seriousness and resolve. “You know that, right?”

And Steve looks at her, and not beyond; forces himself not to glance at the flat line of the cardiograph or the dull white of Bucky’s right arm against sheets that look yellow by comparison. Steve looks at _her_.

“Yeah,” he breathes out, careful and slow and somehow, he thinks, all that’s left in him to hold together might be tied up inside that single exhale, too: 

“Yeah,” Steve tells her; “I know that.”

_________________________

Steve doesn’t know how long it’s been. Steve doesn’t know how many close calls they’ve circumvented, or haven’t. Steve doesn’t know anything, because once Jemma disappeared into that room, he’s only felt cold, and a constant pressure in his chest, a fist there clenching and no matter how he closes his own fists, ready to strangle and _end_ , there’s no comparison, no contest: no relief.

_Breathe, Stevie_ , is the voice in his head, Bucky’s slow drawl from a century ago, from a lifetime ago: from a day ago, from their bedroom, from the warmth of his body against Steve’s own and the shape of his smile.

Bucky’s voice in his head is the only thing that keeps him alive, in that time that might have been a moment, might have been forever.

“Cap?”

Tony’s call across the intercom system wrenches Steve to what’s in front of him, and Steve hadn’t been thinking clear enough to gauge the quality of Tony’s voice, to see if it’s good news or bad, to know—

“Please do not be alarmed, Captain Rogers,” JARVIS is saying from above, and it’s only then that Steve realizes he's standing, he’s walking, and his heart’s jackhammering in a way that cannot _last_. “The procedure—”

The doors open for Steve without incident, and Steve’s eyes are drawn straight to Bucky’s form at the center of the room, settled on a bed now, pink against white sheets, chest rising, falling—

_Rising_ , oh _god_.

“There’s something to be said about that supersoldier upgrade, isn’t there?” Jemma’s smiling at him, weary, hesitant but still almost triumphant where she’s watching Bucky’s vitals stream across the screen.

_Stream_ across the screen. Moving. _Real_.

Steve can’t help himself; Steve’s shaking too hard to do anything but turn toward Bucky and grasp for his wrist: light, but close enough to counts the beats, there, to match them to the screen as the fist in Steve’s chest starts shaking, too, just as hard, just as devastating as Steve starts to come undone, starts to give way because Bucky’s blood is pumping, Bucky’s heart is beating, Bucky’s _warm_ where Steve touches his skin and Christ, _Christ_ —

“Stevie?” the voice is rough; it’s jagged and it tears as it comes into being but Steve’s never heard anything so beautiful, never known anything so goddamned _sweet_.

“Bucky,” Steve breathes out, and those eyes are blinking up at him, and they’re blue, they’re _blue_ and they see; they see _him_ , and they’re glittering in the fluorescents overhead, they’re tired and in pain but they’re gorgeous, and when they take Steve in they light with a depth of feeling that makes Steve’s throat close in for the way that it overcomes him, for the way it washes through him and nearly knocks him to his knees. 

“Oh my god, Buck,” Steve gasps, nearly moans. “You’re,” and then Bucky’s palm is turning upward, is matching Steve’s and fitting their fingers together, slipping between and folding together and it’s a grasp that doesn’t hurt, and the sudden release of pressure in his chest at the touch is dizzying, is horrible and beautiful and life and death and it’s too much, it’s too much to keep the burning behind his eyes at bay: “You’re—”

“Right here, punk,” Bucky breathes out. “Still kickin’.” 

And Steve gasps, damn well sobs when Bucky’s left hand reaches, slow but steady to cup Steve’s cheek, to stroke it with a softness that’s always more pronounced, always more perfect when it’s that metal thumb running across his skin, impossibly smooth and warm, now—part of Bucky’s living flesh as much as anything, Bucky’s _living flesh_. 

“Can’t get rid of me that easy,” Bucky’s saying, soft but with such clear eyes, with such intent, with such devotion to easing _Steve’s_ mind, _Steve’s_ heart when it was Bucky who wasn’t fucking _breathing_ anymore just hours ago, maybe minutes, and Jesus, _Jesus_ —

That’s what breaks Steve. That’s what breaks him, in the end.

It’s okay, though.

Bucky’s hands on him never give way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over [here](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com), on tumblr, where I enthuse over these characters like it's my damned job.
> 
> (Can it be my job? Maybe?)


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So,” Bucky murmurs, watches Steve’s neck where Steve knows the pump of his blood’s more than visible, more than giving him away: “You gonna tell me, or just leave me guessin’ here, thinkin’ the worst?”
> 
> Steve swallows hard; feels every twist and give of his heartbeat against the motion of his throat.
> 
> "I'm not an idiot Steve,” Bucky says. “Ain't the first time I've died. I recognize the feeling. I know you did _somethin’_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again: my gratitude to the incomparable [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad) for looking this over <3
> 
>  
> 
>  

Bucky’s back on his feet within the week—back in the gym within three—and as much as Steve wants to hold him close, wants to hide him away in their apartment, in their room, beneath the sheets of their bed and listen to the way he breathes just a little longer: as much as Steve needs to know with absolute certainty that Bucky is still _here_ , that he’s _okay_ , he has to remind himself that Bucky tidily handing Clint’s ass to him at the range, or coaxing Nat to give no quarter as they go toe to toe, or _volunteering_ his arm for upgrades because Tony’s bug up his ass and fiddling with the tech beneath those metal plates is an almost foolproof means of calming Stark the fuck down: Steve reminds himself that _these_ are the best proofs that Bucky is here, that Bucky is safe and sound and _well_ that Steve could ever ask for. The fact that Bucky deflects a stray tranq-arrow with an idle _s’that really the best you can do, Barton?_ ; that Bucky laughs with his whole body, with the fullness of both lungs when Natasha nudges him playfully as they both catch their breaths; that Bucky not only sits through Tony’s tinkering but keeps up a running stream of smart-assery until the tension in Tony’s shoulders has started giving way—that is Bucky, here and now and real and so _alive_.

And if Steve has any doubts, he gets to go to bed just as he wakes in the morning with the truest proof of that fact stretched next to him, beside him, around him; _within_ him—Steve doesn’t have the space to doubt, not with the vibrant fact of _Bucky_ shining everywhere, undeniable.

Sometimes, Steve’s heart trips hard, catches and knocks him off-balance for a moment as he feels it like a blow: what he lost.

What he almost lost for _good_.

It’s hard to breathe, in those moments: it’s hard to breathe until Bucky meets his eyes, until Bucky seems to sense Steve’s struggle and smiles, brilliant and blinding and absolute, and the curve of it sets Steve’s pulse back to the rhythm it knows—brings the world back into focus and restores gravity to rights.

Bucky, though: Bucky’s always done that; Bucky always been those things, to Steve.

James Buchanan Barnes has _always_ held that power.

In the end, though: they get a week. Steve gets a week, before Bucky’s fingertips against his spine wake Steve in the dark—and Steve freezes, and his heart stutters, and his body heals the rough drag of flesh on flesh before a mark can be made but it doesn’t matter either way, because as soon as the lines are drawn, they sear like a brand, and it might as well have been Steve who died and woke with a language in his mind that’s not his own, not of earth: it sticks that close, that clear.

That thick in his throat.

When they wake, though, Bucky only looks to his hands, pressed flat against Steve’s back—odd, but not suspect in themselves—and blinks, face blank, before he shakes his head and leans, kisses the corner of Steve’s mouth before he claims the shower first.

Steve tries to let go of a breath he doesn’t remember holding, and tries to steady his pulse before Bucky comes back, praying that it’s only once; that it’ll go unnoticed, that it’ll mean nothing.

Change nothing.

But Bucky’s not stupid. Bucky’s never been slow to see how things connect. Of the two of them, in fact, Bucky was always the sharper one, the quicker-witted of the pair: between the science fairs and the exhibitions and the Museum of Natural History; damn, but Steve knew how to draw his elephants, what with the way Bucky gravitated toward the Hall of Asian Mammals, and Steve’s never been partial to pachyderms, but with how Bucky’s eyes used to get bright, his face used to just sort of glow as he stared, well: Steve could learn. To have a preference.

He could definitely learn.

And it was never just _Steve_ who wanted to go to the Met, it wasn’t just Steve who was wide-eyed and raised-browed when Guggenheim’s Non-Objective Painting display went live—where Steve had a vested interested, Bucky just marveled at _everything_ , wanted to look at the proportions, the way different paints looked on different materials; Bucky wanted to wonder at the debris caught in oils, bristles or hair, maybe an eyelash—and Bucky was the one who’d look up from his ever-present paperback and weave pretty words about where the pieces of life in the dried paint came from, who they belonged to, what their stories were.

Those sorts of things were all Bucky, because Bucky was brilliant. Always had been.

And Bucky’s mind is more keen now than ever before, not just for the sake of the serum, but because he’s learned to know his own mind meticulously, to see the anomalies, to know fact from fiction, dream from reality, nightmares from the memories that simply come under cover of the night: so Steve should be taken aback that he _doesn’t_ read it straight off, that it happens even once without comment, just that blank stare and a shake of the head and the burn of fine lines, invisible inside Steve’s skin. 

Steve should be surprised that Bucky actually sleeps alongside those images twice through before he recognizes the non sequitur and sets it in his sights for imminent destruction, no holds barred.

Steve shouldn’t be breathless, and blindsided, and sick in his gut: he shouldn’t be any of those things, when the time comes, but he is.

Because the sun’s not even up yet, when Steve startles awake to find Bucky watching, staring: eyes sharp, bright but open wide, taking Steve in. And Bucky’s breathing’s even, but Steve feels the phantom tingle of a map against his skin and the circular motion of Bucky’s thumb against his shoulder blade is enough to clench at the base of his throat, the swell of his heart when it squeezes shut.

“So,” Bucky murmurs, watches Steve’s neck where Steve knows the pump of his blood’s more than visible, more than giving him away: “You gonna tell me, or just leave me guessin’ here, thinkin’ the worst?”

Steve swallows hard; feels every twist and give of his heartbeat against the motion of his throat.

"I'm not an idiot Steve,” Bucky says; doesn’t pull away, but the sadness, the subtle edge in those words makes it feel like he does, makes Steve feel empty and cold as if Bucky’s stuck a mile in between them and Steve cannot get across. 

“Ain't the first time I've died,” Bucky adds, a little wry, but Steve can’t help but flinch for it, because it’s true, because for all that Steve manages, for all that Steve saves, he couldn’t manage to save Bucky, to save this _one thing_ that matters most. 

“So I recognize the feeling,” Bucky shrugs, and the hand he keeps on Steve’s back is steady, but it’s not a comfort—it’s a question, if Steve’s careful, if Steve watches from outside, but if he’s honest, it feels like acid: a condemnation, skin to skin: “I know you did _somethin’_."

“Might as well keep on thinking the worst, then,” Steve rasps, studies the wrinkles in the sheets beneath his hand where it clenches, where the knuckles turn white and Steve can only think of that operating table, can only think of whiter skin than linens and Bucky’s stock-still chest. 

“Doesn’t get any worse than that, Buck,” he croaks out, spits it like the venom it is, the way it kills him just to think it, just to remember that there was a time, so much as a moment where it was real, where that was true. “So I don’t know what you’re askin’ me to say.”

Bucky’s fingers twitch against the line of Steve’s bones—no longer prominent, no longer brittle like the used to be, but Steve can’t quite escape from the certainty that they’re all he is, that he’s naked, stripped to his skeleton: that he’ll break entirely with too harsh a breath; that he’ll shatter under the force of the shiver of Bucky’s chest against his spine, firm as it expands with a deep, stuttering breath that speaks of realizations Steve can’t stomach, can’t withstand—Steve’s as weak, as vulnerable to undoing as he ever was, small and gasping in the Brooklyn chill, Bucky’s hands upon his heaving chest.

The world’s changed, the years gone, but nothing’s different.

Nothing’s changed.

Bucky was always the smarter, the stronger one between them.

“The shit they gave Coulson,” Bucky breathes out, and Steve’s eyes squint closed, hard and heavy as he hears the knowing start to settle in Bucky’s tone—knowing, first. Then horror, hissed out against the clench of his jaw.

“The shit that brought him back, and Skye,” and Bucky’s hair is grazing Steve’s skin as he shakes his head back and forth; Bucky’s grip on Steve’s body seems conflicted, houses divided in the way the metal clings to him, steady; the way the flesh trembles, inches away from Steve’s skin like it can’t bear to touch, can’t think to pull away.

“Whatever magic juice fixed the wiring in Fitz’s brain, that’s...” And Steve’s heart twists, damn well breaks with Bucky’s voice as it cracks, as both of Bucky’s hands shake fast enough, strong enough against Steve that it poses a threat, tests the weakened framework of his body, his resolve, his composure where he’s ready to fold, to snap hard and sharp, the pieces bound to scatter, primed to dissipate when they land.

“Jesus, Stevie,” Bucky exhales, low and sharp and like a whistle, the gasp of air through the wasteland, among the dead as it escapes through the gaps in his teeth. “That,” he gasps, and it snags in Steve’s chest just as harsh because Steve remembers the sound—remembers Bucky huddled in a corner without enough air as he gasped and shook, as he tore at his hair, at his skin, clawed beneath his eyes as he screamed with the onset of recollection, of memories that featured his hands, his body yet so crucially left out his _soul_ , considering how that soul _bled_ for every moment Bucky’d spent seizing against the images, the dying, the horrors: Steve remembers that reaching, that touching only made it worse; that the sedatives weren’t strong enough to matter, to last—that Bucky had nearly self-destructed in front of Steve’s eyes, then and there.

And Steve had been powerless, _powerless_ : and he’d prayed—goddamnit, he’d prayed to every god and devil, if Bucky made it through this, made it out the other side and back to Steve, that Steve would never let this happen; that he’d keep Bucky safe. That he’d never leave Bucky to hurt, to suffer: that he’d never see Bucky lost again.

Not _ever_.

“It’s, they,” Bucky’s voice is growing hoarse, and the sharp inhalations are fire and ice against the nape of Steve’s neck, the rapid heaving of Bucky’s chest like gunfire, like lethal impact against the line of Steve’s spine as Bucky chokes out, gasps: “Alien,” he rasps, and Steve remembers this, remembers it from Bucky’s miserable frame curled in a ball against the far wall, half-mad with the memory and the only thing that’s different now is the fact that he’s still within arm’s reach, and the words themselves: alien, now, where it was _monster_ , where it had been _machine_.

“Fuck, fuck, it’s _alien_ , I’m...” And Steve manages to turn, manages to face Bucky and grasp his hands, still them between his own except that whatever motion Steve traps against his fingers is redirected, somehow, perfectly appropriated by the dangerous speed, the impossible shallow wheeze of Bucky’s breath, in and out so fast that neither seems to matter, and Steve’s heart falls hard and fast at the distance in Bucky’s eyes, the way they’re wide and somewhere else entirely: 

“I’m a—”

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Steve cuts him off, shuts him down and wills his own body not to shake with terror, with agony, with guilt for causing this but not for _having this_ , not for Bucky’s hands between his own and Bucky’s eyes on him, now, listening, grasping to his voice like Steve learned to invite, to coax until Bucky was fixed upon him, woven into his being so tight that he damn well vibrated in his _cells_ at the same frequency as Steve, breathing in and out in time.

And it takes a while. It takes everything Steve has to wait until the air in Bucky’s lungs means a goddamned thing, actually does its job. It takes time, and Steve is spent once Bucky’s chest is brushing up, pressing hard against his own with every deep inhale, with every tease of the heartbeat underneath pumped full and bright and strong against Steve’s sternum before the exhale leads its retreat. 

“You’re the best reason I’ve got for waking up in the morning,” Steve finishes the thought, the truth that lives in his bones. “You’re perfect, and you’re _you_ , all of it.” Steve molds both of Bucky’s hands into one of his own, now, so that he can reach, so that he can stroke down Bucky’s left arm, so that he press a flat palm to the center of Bucky’s chest—so that he can draw lines and circles and meaning and nonsense on Bucky’s skin as he says: “You ain’t nothing more or less than James Buchanan Barnes, and that is _everything_ , you understand me?” 

Steve surges forward, presses close so that his own chest traps his hand on Bucky’s, so that his mouth is close enough to kiss but speaks fervent against those lips instead:

“You are _everything_.”

And he holds Bucky’s gaze, steady and sure and hiding nothing, risking all because it’s the God’s-honest truth.

It takes a while. It takes time: but the spell falls, and Bucky’s breathing turns shaky, but still deep, still sure and full, and his eyes close as he exhales slow, and his heart’s still heavy and fast beneath Steve’s hand, but Steve knows.

Bucky’s heard him. Bucky’s taken it in.

And that’s what counts.

Bucky is silent, save for the sound of his breaths, and Steve’s body is tense, because there’s a pattern to this, a pattern to Bucky’s mind, to his reactions, to the fire as it banks and roars, and Steve’s learned what comes after terror, after the emotions he cannot rein in: not just here, in the now, but always, _always_.

“Is that,” Bucky swallows hard, but the steel beneath the words themselves, when they come: that’s much harder. “They’re in my head, now?”

“No,” Steve says immediately, feeds the futile hope that there’s some way to curtail the cycle, the way that Bucky’s emotions give way, the way his heart spills over when he’s pushed too far: Steve _tries_ , because Steve’s a stubborn bastard and maybe one day it’ll work—maybe _today_. “No one’s in your head. Just you, Buck, I swear.”

“Then how’d the fuck this circuit board get burned behind my eyelids, Stevie, huh?” Bucky’s tone shifts up an octave, teases the top of his register as his eyes darken, narrow; as he flushes, and just as it used to be, just as it’s been since the start: Bucky’s fear takes him first—all those close calls in Steve’s younger years, fights he picked and barely walked away from, ailments he ignored until they waylaid him entirely—after Bucky deals with the fact that he’s petrified, he takes to hollering: he gives over to his temper.

“Over and over,” Bucky’s gaining momentum as he sits up, as his hands start gesturing broadly, as his cheeks get progressively more red. “Just keeps curving, keeps bleeding into everything and—”

“It’s a side effect,” Steve shifts, sits up but doesn’t reach to bring Bucky close, not yet: Steve knows he crossed a line, Steve knows there are consequences to any choice that’s made, and Steve hates that Bucky’s reeling with it, that Bucky’s suffering for it at all: but he will not feel guilt for this.

He will not regret the presence of the fierce, unstoppable force that is the better half of his heart: he will not regret that he’s whole in this bed, that Bucky’s near him, living, _breathing_ still to rail, to scream, to protest what Steve wouldn’t think to take back, even if he could.

Steve will _not_ be sorry for keeping Bucky _here_. 

“It’s just,” Steve exhales, tilts his head. “It’s static. It’s not someone in your head, it’s just an image, it doesn’t mean anything,” and Steve’s babbling, he knows that he’s babbling because Bucky’s eyes have always given him away—always held the whole of him, unfettered, and now they’re brimming with betrayal, with rage and Steve can’t take it, Steve’s hanging by a thread and this is too sharp to withstand. 

“It doesn’t _do_ anything,” and it comes out far too much like a whine, like a plea, and Steve can feel it, sick and hateful in his chest, the way he’s faltering, the way it’s all weighing down, the way he can feel the faultlines being etched, being drawn, being worn from thin to disastrous. “It’s not, you’re…”

“But it’s not _mine_ ,” Bucky snarls, despairs, and it’s so laden a sound with both unbearable pain and unspeakable fury that it cleaves at the foundation Steve’s been clutching to, it leaves Steve too much space in which to come apart.

“Jesus, fuck,” Bucky's spiralling, spewing wild, frenetic: “it’s, they, _you_ —”

And the way it’s said: _you_ , all accusation and disbelief, like Steve’s broken something, like Steve’s violated something sacred when he’d never, could _never_ —it wedges in, pries him wide and where there was too much space to come undone, he doesn’t need it, he caves inward, implodes before he snaps:

"Yeah,” Steve breathes out, but it’s just the beginning, just the tip of the iceberg and it’s all coming down, now, it’s a deluge in the making. “Yeah, _me_. I did...”

And Steve feels it: a sensation of sharpness, of unmistakable give that snakes between his ribs because Bucky’s looking at him, beginning for a reason, a justification far more than he’s jonesing for a fight, and Steve hates when he fails this man that he needs more than blood in his veins, but he cannot give Bucky what he’s after, in this.

 _This_ needs no _explanation_.

“ _I_ did this,” Steve says, stone-faced, but he can’t keep the feeling from his voice where it strains around the impossible density of what it means to _love this deep_. “I asked them to do this. And no, I wouldn’t have taken no for an answer, because I never learned how to breathe right without you next to me, and I didn’t realize how bad a job I was doin’ at it until I got you back, and remembered what living _felt_ like. So yes,” Steve nods, and if his voice grows lower, now, that doesn’t mean that he’s cowed by the flare of rebellion, of heartache that flashes through Bucky’s eyes because Bucky can feel what he feels, and Steve wouldn’t ever try to tell him otherwise, but this is nonnegotiable. This was more than life and death: this was an _end_ , and no one can ask Steve if he’d take back the steps necessary to backtrack, to run away from that end as fast as he possibly could.

“I knew this was the cost,” Steve admits; “and yes, I did it anyway.” And he does ache for it, horribly and wretchedly and in a way he might never manage to forget—but not a way that matters one fucking _bit_ in the face of what it means, what it _feels like_ to have a heartbeat when Bucky doesn’t. 

“I did it anyway,” Steve bites out, wills it to be a breath and a fact and an offering, all at once. “Of course I did,” and he knows that his eyes are begging for understanding as Bucky considers him, watches him with the lick of flames that maybe, just maybe, aren’t so sheer—maybe, but it could be wishful thinking.

“I did what I should have been doing for the past seventy fucking years,” and Steve feels it, keenly, when the fight leaves him—it happens as soon as Bucky blinks and there’s the hint of tenderness beneath the heat: it happens when Steve’s chest feels full, and sore, and too damned leaden to stand it any longer.

It happens when Bucky’s hands twitch—both hands, same time—like they want to reach for him; it happens when Steve’s skin tingles, when his blood _sings_ just to see it happen, just to know it’s there.

“It's about damn time I started taking care of you as well as you've taken care of me,” Steve murmurs, and it’s the deepest truth, because he’s failed Bucky more than he’s given him what he deserves, he’s left Bucky to suffer more than he’s held Bucky close: he’s not proud of it, he never _meant_ for that to be their world.

But his heart can’t take that status quo any longer. It’s too careworn, now, too fragile. It remembers too strongly what it feels like to be _without_.

"‘Bout time I stopped letting you die on me,” Steve exhales, and he reaches, stops halfway, and it hurts as the air spills forth from his lungs, leaves him empty: waiting as he croaks out the last of the words he’s got: “‘Specially seein’ as you’ve never let _me_ die on _you_."

And it’d never been for lack of trying: it’d never been for lack of Steve telling Bucky to let him go, to take the last of the bread for himself, to stop wasting precious food on Steve, to stop spending all their money on the medication that’d only keep him well for so long—but Bucky’d never listened.

Bucky’d told him, once, that Steve—fevered and half-out of his head—had asked Bucky to stop fighting for him; asked Bucky to fight for himself.

But Bucky’d never listened. Bucky’d done whatever he could, and then some, regardless of what Steve wanted, regardless of what Steve could bear to see, to stand. And here Steve was: alive and kicking in a brand new century, twice the size and with bruises on the heart of him to prove the weight of years.

Bucky’d _never_ given up.

Steve will be _damned_ if he’s sorry for giving this man, this beautiful fucking _idiot_ anything less in return. 

That conviction, though: it’s not enough to stay the way Steve’s ribs feel small, the way his chest clenches tight—it’s not enough to make his lungs breathe easy. It’s not enough to take the sting out from behind his eyes as they swim with something heavy, something overwhelming that threatens to swallow him whole.

It’s the way it wants to consume him, the way it threatens to take him under: that’s what distracts him, that’s what makes it so he doesn’t see.

Doesn’t notice, not until it happens, that Bucky’s reaching.

That Bucky’s hands are stretching, finding his own and meeting him halfway.

Twining fingers together like he’s never letting go.

“You’re right,” Bucky whispers, and it’s hoarse, but it’s resolute: the way he stares at their hands, the way his face is slack, the anger having slipped somewhere while Steve couldn’t look, couldn’t watch—Bucky’s chest heaves deep and he breathes out slow, and it feels like an impulse, it doesn’t feel planned and that’s what gives it weight, when he does it: when Bucky brings Steve’s fingertips to his lips, closes his eyes and presses them there, less a kiss than a rite, a sacrament as Bucky trips on the inhale, as the air catches in his throat.

“You’re a selfish sonuvabitch sometimes,” Bucky huffs out a laugh that has no humor, shakes his head in a way that’s resigned, but he holds Steve’s hands first to his lips, then trails them down to his chest, wraps a careful grip around Steve’s wrists: “When it comes to this.” 

“When it comes to _you_ ,” Steve breathes, and takes the risk of leaning close, of trapping their hands between their chests as he leans his forehead in against Bucky’s, as he sighs soft so that they breathe the same air: he risks it, and the tremble in Bucky’s deep exhale, the way he shrinks with it, softens head to toe, somehow—somehow, it makes Steve feel light again. Like the world’s not ending.

Just as he makes to tighten his grip on Bucky’s hand in his own, Bucky’s already squeezing, already latching hard to Steve’s palm: eyes closed, just breathing.

And Steve will breathe with him as long as he wants; as long as he needs.

Steve will breathe with this man, in this bed, until the day they die.

“And I’m just as bad, ain’t I?” Bucky chuckles, just a little: marveling and stupefied and when he looks up, it steals Steve’s breath entirely. “Thank god for that, I guess.” Bucky mouths it, more than he speaks, and if he hesitates, it’s not enough to mean a thing, because he’s moving, pressing his cheek to Steve’s and Steve feels the shock of it, the way they both tense before melting against the contact, the warmth: the feeling that home is here, in that press of skin on skin. 

“Even knowing what it’s like,” Bucky's lips are warm against Steve’s ear, and his breathing is heavy, his chest tight against Steve’s chest where it belongs, where _they_ belong. “Even knowing what it feels like, how it,” his head dips, the soft graze of stubble rough, grounding against Steve’s skin.

“If it meant having you back,” Bucky’s speaking into the pulse at Steve’s jaw bone, now, his lips parted as if to hold it, as if to cradle it: safe. “I’d put you through that hell,” Bucky’s voice breaks, and Steve feels the tension, the struggle in the way that he swallows before Bucky pulls back, releases Steve’s hands abruptly and Steve can’t fight, doesn’t _want_ to tamp down the whimper that escapes at the loss, but Bucky’s cupping his face in both hands, and pressing their bodies close enough that Steve’s own palms, still pressed to Bucky’s chest, above his heart, are held now with the way their chests rise in tandem, pressing Steve closer to that precious beat with every labored breath.

“I’d stand by you every minute of it, and I’d fight off as much of it I could,” Bucky tells him, looks him deep in the eye with a new kind of fire: unapologetic. Ready to walk through Hell. “And I’d do my damnedest to take every inch of that hurt off you, and onto myself,” he says, and his thumbs are rough, so welcome against Steve’s face as they stroke, up and down, the rhythm like a balm on an open wound Steve didn’t realize was gaping quite so wide, was hurting quite so deep. 

“But goddamnit, Stevie,” Bucky bows his head, says it into the space between Steve's clavicles before he looks up again, before he runs fingers through Steve’s hair and breathes: “You’re _right_.”

Steve’s exhales sounds more like a sob even to his own ears, and Steve doesn't have to ask, doesn’t have to so much as move before Bucky’s lips are on him, and this is life, this is warmth, this is the turning of the earth and the touch of infinity, the hint of the why inside so many lifetimes with just one need, just one soul to fill the empty space inside another.

“Doesn’t mean I ain’t mad,” Bucky catches Steve’s lower lip between his own.

“You got every right to be,” Steve’s tongue darts out, traces the lines of Bucky’s mouth before Bucky’s breathing hitches again, and he deflates, sliding slow into the space beneath Steve’s chin.

“None of this means _anything_ if I don’t have you,” Bucky murmurs, damn near moans. “If I can’t wake up from the echo of it all and see you here next to me,” and Bucky threads his fingers in Steve’s now, once more, turns them ‘round to press against Steve’s chest as he whispers, as he marvels, as his voice cracks against the weight of feeling. 

“If I can’t wake up and hear you breathin’ with clear lungs,” he whispers, soft and rough and true; “listen to that heart of yours pump steady, just marking time,” and Bucky’s making that heart shiver hard, trip for the way he’s so close even as he draws back, even as he looks up and watches Steve with the kind of single-minded devotion that curls at Steve’s center and makes him feel whole.

“And you lookin’ at me,” Bucky says, and he’s so real, so warm and he’s here, it worked, and Steve wants to sob into that open mouth and prove to the cosmos that when it comes to this, when it comes to _them_ there are no lines that can’t be crossed, no rules that can’t be broken, because there is no expiration on this kind of need, the subtle weave of two fucked up souls: in this, for them, there is no stopping.

 _They_ do not _end_.

“You looking at me, and knowing,” Bucky breathes, and his eyes are so big, his heart is so clear in them, and Steve just wants to hold him, to take all the doubts and fears he sees and wrap them in the love that swims around them, cover them with the way Steve lives for this man, for these moments, for this, and them, beyond all measure. 

“You knowing all that’s been...all that I’ve…” 

Bucky trails off, but it doesn’t matter: Steve knows what still haunts him, what still plagues him; the underlying thread that drove his anger in the first place, his fear—not only that his mind was not his own, but what he _risks_ when he loses control.

Steve cannot put into words what it means, after everything, that it’s Steve _himself_ that Bucky fears risking, fear harming: fears to lose.

“I can stand it, Stevie, if it was for a reason,” Bucky exhales so soft that Steve thinks it could break, except Bucky’s eyes are far too bright, and Bucky’s pulse is a thing Steve can see, that he can touch, and so he does: reaches and brushes it light against Bucky’s throat, and Bucky shivers when Steve stretches his palm to cup Bucky’s chin; Steve falls apart in the best of all ways when Bucky leans into the touch, moves so that Steve’s hand on him drags in something like a caress. 

“I can stand it,” he says, “if that reason was you.”

And there are words: Steve knows there are. There are words and maybe promises, but they’re not worth a damn when what they have is a thing they can feel: when what they _are_ is everything they know—when what they’ve found inside each other is the foundation of the world as they live and breathe it in. 

And Bucky’s eyes are so blue, Bucky’s skin is so warm, Bucky’s pulse is so strong and Steve wants to live inside those facts until the dark takes hold for good, because without them, there is nothing.

That much, he’s sure of.

So he doesn’t use words. He doesn’t try to fit how it feels to hear it said, to listen to Bucky speak that kind of impossibility: that all of the horror, the uncertainty, the fractures in his mind and his body, the hate and the hurt and the harm and the place where they fell—that it might be _bearable_ , somehow, because _Steve_ was at the end; when the truth is, the _truth_ is that Steve is only anything because _Bucky_ found that end at all, that Bucky made it _here_. And maybe it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy; maybe they’re not just two halves of a whole but something deeper, something more: maybe because they need, they find. Steve doesn’t know. Steve doesn’t care.

He presses his body to Bucky’s body, and relishes the give of it, the strength of it, the _life_ in it.

And if there are tears there, between them, as the night stretches long: if there are tears beneath the circles and the lines that Steve draws with every ounce of what he feels when he looks at Bucky Barnes, rewrites what it means to fit the things they cannot say, takes the repetition and sculpts it into a mantra, makes it into a vow that _he_ writes, that _he_ gives, that _they_ share: if there are tears as they shake, together in the dark, it doesn’t matter, it’s never mattered.

It’s just another sign of life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap on this little prompt-response-idea I couldn't shake—if you find yourself still craving more babble as a side to random reblogs of pretty things, feel free to come say hi on [tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com); I'm always up for more company :)

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com), if you like.


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